Our eyes meet for barely a split second, and I get nothing. Not a warning. Not a flicker of recognition. Nothing. I’m itching to send him some sort of message, but I don’t. I do that and we’re both dead. Michael knows as much already. “You brought in the heavy artillery, I see,” he says.

Julio snaps his fingers and Teo hurries out of the room; they’ve clearly done this before. “Yeah, I brought in the big guns just for you, buddy. We gave you some time to think about what you’ve done and why you’re here. Now we’ve come to chat. Anything in particular you’d like to talk about, ese?”

Teo returns then, a wooden stool in either hand. He places them in front of Michael, and Julio sits down on the first. The other is apparently for me. I sit, trying to figure our how the hell this is all gonna play out. Badly, I’m guessing. Really fucking badly.

“Not particularly,” Michael says, letting his head fall to one side. His shirt is fucking filthy, covered in blood—not his blood; his lip wouldn’t have bled that much and his nose is just fine, which means it must be someone else’s. I get a kick out of that. My boy Michael is fucking dangerous when he needs to be.

Julio isn’t at all impressed with this show of nonchalance, though. He leans forward, making the chair creak underneath him as his considerable body weight shifts. “I ain’t got time for torturing people right now. I’m gonna ask you two questions, and then after that we’re not gonna use words anymore. You hearin’ me?”

Michael spares a brief look from Julio to me, and then to Teo, as if considering his options. Even I know they look pretty fucking bleak right now. But Michael also knows I got his back. I won’t let things go too far before I step in. “Sure,” he says. “You can ask your two questions. I have zero problem answering anything you have to ask me.”

Julio accepts this with a single jerk of his head. “You see this man?” He points his thumb to his right. At me. Michael nods, and an overly friendly smile spreads on Julio’s smug, fat fucking face. “Great. You ever seen this man before?”

“Nope.”

“You sure? You’ve never heard the name Zeth Mayfair?”

“Never, man.” Michael’s face is a brick wall as he denies knowing me. We’ve been friends, business associates, drinking buddies for close to eight years, but from looking Michael straight in the eye, you would never, ever suspect him of lying. There’s not a scrap of subterfuge on him; his eyes are clear and he doesn’t have a single tic to give him away. You could hook this guy up to a lie detector and he would charm the pants off the thing. Julio’s a persistent bastard, though.

“You ever heard the name Charlie Holsan?”

“Nope.”

“So you weren’t hired by anyone of that name? To follow this man to my home? To disturb the peace here?”

Holy shit. So…Julio suspects Charlie sent Michael here to spy on me? I guess in Julio’s head that’s the only thing that makes sense, except it never occurred to me that he might come to that conclusion. I’ve been too busy worrying that the real reason is glaringly obvious, but that’s just not the case. Julio has no cause to suspect I came here with the intentions of stealing a girl from him. I mean, why would he? That wouldn’t only be dumb. It would be fucking suicide.

“I told you. I don’t know this guy and I don’t know those names. I got laid off from my job with a nice fat pay out,” Michael explains, as though he’s had to tell this story before. “I knew about this place from my cousin. He said you had top pussy here, so I thought I'd come check it out first. Wanted to see the girls first, though. Didn't want to waste my money and all on some skanky, dried-up old whores."

So this is the story he's been telling. He must've had the money I gave him on him when Andreas and his buddies found him — it was a lot of cash. Too much money for your average person to be carrying around with them. But enough to have on you if you're planning on renting a girl or two from Julio Perez. The only problem is, people in the know who find themselves in the market for a girl also know that you can't just turn up at Julio’s place. That's suicide, too.

Teo shifts his grip on the assault rifle he's grasping hold of, as he's thinking the exact same thing. Julio nods at this, considering it. Maybe not believing it, but definitely considering it.

"Who's this cousin of yours, man? He someone who comes here often?"

This is an important question. If Michael refuses to tell Julio his cousin's name, he's dead. If Michael makes up a fake name and Julio knows he's lying, he's dead. I have no idea how he's going to get out of this one. I straighten a little on my stool, readying myself. If I see either Julio or Teo reaching for their weapons, my ass will be up and charging before they can manage to pull off a round.

Hopefully.

Michael still doesn't look bothered by this situation. I've gotta admit, I knew Michael was stone cold, but I can see the slow and steady pulse of his heartbeat twitching in his neck and it's barely fucking there. Even I would be sweating a little if I found myself down here, staring down the barrel of a weapon capable of riddling me full of holes in less than two seconds flat. "Well, my cuz is a regular here by all accounts. I could tell you his real name, but I don't think he'd be all that impressed with me."

Julio’s the one who isn't impressed. "Now is not the right time to be fucking around, ese. Please understand…you're on the brink of finding yourself shot in the back of the head and buried somewhere very unpleasant. I invite you to act accordingly."